The good ol’ days of building Java

The good ol’ days of building Java

September 1, 2026 · 30 min · Episode 984

About this episode

Ryan interviews Tim Lindholm about the early days of building the Java programming language and its strategic importance.

Ryan sits down with Tim Lindholm, an early contributor to the Java language at Sun Microsystems, to chat about what it was like building one of the most popular programming languages ever at its inception, why it was strategically important for the Java team to create a cross-platform ABI to compete with Windows NT, and how applets were initially just an interesting demo.  Episode notes:  Watch the new documentary by Cult.Repo on YouTube to learn more about the early history of Java and the people who built it. Connect with Tim Lindholm on LinkedIn . Shoutout to user gabuzo for winning a Populist badge for answering What is the standard method for generating a nonce in Python? . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

People in this episode

Host: Ryan

Guest: Tim Lindholm

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Sun Microsystems, Cult.Repo, LinkedIn

Products: Java, Windows NT

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